biographical

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Design Education Research

As the interview as a method of data gathering has gained in popularity in the disciplines of art and design, templates of consent letters are generated in their hundreds, and the absence of a duly signed document — in a research output using humans as a source of data — usually renders the undertaking unethical and invalid. However, in the rush to protect the institution and its agents against litigation, it is perhaps forgotten that the signing of the obligatory letter is only a first, technical, step in a personal encounter between individuals.

Paying it forward: Practicing Scholarship of Engagement in Design Education

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Design Education Research

This paper reports on a project named Platform 6, which was designed to facilitate teacher development and thereby to develop teachers as scholars. Initiated within the context of Boyer’s Scholarship of Engagement (1991), Platform 6 is a training programme and awareness drive devised for secondary school design teachers on the pedagogy of teaching design thinking and practice.

The exploratory first leg of Platform 6 was limited to a sample of National Senior Certificate (NSC) schools in the Western Cape. Qualitative-exploratory research methodology was employed to gain real world insight about the teaching and learning environment of design teachers in South Africa. It was useful to understand the dynamics of design teaching in grades 10 to 12 in Western Cape schools.

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

This paper centres around a creative design project for first-­‐year fashion design students. This project was informed by (1) the theoretical underpinnings of design thinking, (2) a human-­‐centred approach to design and (3) protocol studies of novice engineering and industrial design students’ approaches to the design process. The design project assumed a design process method that focused on human beings – and their needs – as the driver for fashion design. The aim of adopting such a human-­‐centred method for creative design was three-­‐ fold. Firstly, the design project aimed to create a culture and awareness of human beings and their needs as a driver for fashion design.

Introducing De Jong: reflections upon reconstructing the life and practice of a white English-speaking designer

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Media & Communications Design

Jacob Dlamini, in his seminal text ‘Native nostalgia’ (2010), confides that the first time he heard the term ‘economic sanctions’ used in the township was in the early 1980s when he woke up one day to discover the local Barclays Bank had been renamed First National Bank (FNB). Notably, Dlamini continues to list “a bottle store and … the biggest news agent in Katlehong” as signifiers of urban life of Katlehong, but only the bank is recalled by brand. At the time, the re‐branding of Barclays engendered a storm of protest in South Africa, both in design circles, and amongst members of the public.

Ethics and Design Research at South African Higher Education Institutions: a Prolegomenon:

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Design Education Research

South African Universities demand of their lecturers, amongst other things, a burgeoning research track record. Such research is inevitably subject to the requirements of research and included in these requirements is that the research is carried out within the bounds of acceptable research ethical practice. Therefore, any research that emanates from Design programmes has to meet the mandate of such research ethical practice.

Design management education: the intersection between design and business

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Media & Communications Design

Students from various disciplines have been exposed to design thinking and praxis over the last decade at the University of Pretoria. Students from publishing, journalism, marketing, management, communication, multimedia (engineering) and a variety of other disciplines enrolled for design modules at under- and postgraduate levels. Learning is extended to include collaborative projects between design students and students from other disciplines.

Shifting pedagogies: the impact of recurriculation

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Design Education Strategy

On Monday, June 5 2006, on the front page of the Business Report, it was stated that, “Schools fail to teach the basics, MPs hear”. The article proclaimed that young people were leaving school without having reading or numeracy skills, and because of that businesses were often unable to train young recruits. Each year, fewer than half of the million children who started at grade 1 will register for grade 12. Even those who leave after grade 12 do not have the basic skills to seek work (Hamlyn, 2006: 1).